"Harry! Are you alright?"
Ron rushed over to Harry, his face full of concern.
"I'm fine," Harry replied.
Arthur, standing to the side, had already noticed Snape's presence. He frowned slightly and asked, "Snape, what are you doing here?"
"You can ask Potter about the details. If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving."
With that, Snape Disapparated on the spot.
He couldn't be bothered to repeat the whole explanation again—he'd much rather go home and spend time with his wife and child.
Watching Snape vanish, Arthur had no choice but to turn to Harry.
"Harry, what happened here just now? Why was Snape with you?"
Harry briefly recounted what had happened after he was separated from the Weasley family.
Then he couldn't help complaining,
"This was such a huge wizarding campsite—didn't the Ministry think about security at all?"
He had seen it clearly: there were more Aurors standing next to Fudge than there were Death Eaters causing trouble.
If even a portion of them had been stationed here as guards, the campsite wouldn't have been burned to the ground. The whole incident completely ruined the good mood he'd had after watching the World Cup.
And now, with the Dark Mark still hanging in the sky, the scar on his forehead throbbed faintly again.
Arthur sighed helplessly.
"Actually, the Ministry did assign people to patrol the campsite. But even so, the attack still happened right under their noses."
"To be precise," Arthur added, "those Ministry employees were attacked as well."
Every single Ministry staff member assigned to patrol had been taken down and sent to St. Mungo's. Death Eaters were just that brazen.
Harry was about to say something else when another sharp pain flared across his scar.
Arthur saw Harry clutch his head and assumed it was a lingering effect from being knocked unconscious earlier.
"Are you okay, Harry?" he asked.
"I'm fine—my head just still hurts a bit," Harry replied.
"If anything feels wrong, make sure you say something."
Still uneasy, Arthur decided it would be better to take Harry back and have him checked.
"Alright, let's get out of here."
The campsite was nothing but ruins now. Smoke drifted through the air, carrying the stench of charred debris. There was no reason to stay any longer.
Most of their belongings were probably burned as well, but thankfully they had only planned to stay one night. Aside from a few sets of clothes, nothing valuable was lost.
As for the family tent—it had been borrowed from the Ministry anyway.
Following Arthur, Harry left the campsite. He planned to ask Sirius about the recurring pain in his scar once he got back.
And if Sirius didn't have an answer… he'd ask Arthur.
By his reckoning, it was already late August. Arthur should be returning soon.
Harry hadn't expected Arthur's trip to last a full two months. To his own surprise, he found himself missing the days of playing billiards with Draco at Arthur's place.
So what was Arthur doing at this moment?
At this very time, Arthur had just woken up.
The night before, he had settled down inside the Phoenix clan's blessed land and even invited their clan leader, Huangxi, to visit his tent.
Don't get the wrong idea—nothing scandalous happened. They were simply playing board games.
Specifically, an Eastern tabletop classic—mahjong.
Arthur had bought the set during his travels. It had been years since he last touched the game, and he'd almost forgotten this quintessential piece of Eastern culture.
The girls found the rules fascinating—though Arthur was decidedly not friendly toward beginners.
In the end, they simply kicked Arthur, the seasoned veteran, out of the game and formed a table of four novices instead.
Left with no role to play, Arthur went to sleep on his own.
When he woke up at dawn, he discovered they were still playing.
None of the four were ordinary people. Even Hermione, the weakest among them, could go several days without sleep thanks to her enhanced physique. After playing all night, they were still brimming with energy.
Arthur shook his head helplessly.
He probably shouldn't have introduced mahjong to them in the first place.
It was fun—but dangerously addictive.
Stepping forward, Arthur interrupted the four who were already eager to start another round.
"Alright, that's enough. You've been playing all night. There'll be chances to play again later."
Only then did the four realize that an entire night had passed.
After a quick wash-up and breakfast prepared by Arthur, Huangxi led everyone toward the Fusang Tree at the heart of the blessed land.
The Records of the Ten Continents within the Seas from the Han Dynasty recorded:
"Fusang lies within the Jade Sea. The land is rich in forests, its leaves like mulberry leaves. The tallest trees reach several thousand zhang in height, with girths exceeding two thousand spans. The trees grow in pairs, sharing the same roots and leaning upon one another—thus named Fusang."
In the Han Dynasty, one zhang measured a little over two meters—meaning the Fusang Tree was said to reach heights of several thousand, even over ten thousand meters.
Mount Everest was only a little over eight thousand meters tall.
Where exactly were such mythical landscapes? Arthur truly wished he could witness a forest of such colossal trees.
The Fusang Tree before them wasn't quite as massive as described in the ancient texts, but by Arthur's estimate, it still stood over a thousand meters tall—its trunk so thick that nearly a hundred people would be needed to encircle it.
Standing at the base, they couldn't even see the top.
Upon reaching the tree, Huangxi reverted to her phoenix form and carried Arthur and the others upward.
The Fusang Tree had a unique structure: it was formed by two enormous mulberry trees growing together.
Their roots intertwined from the ground, and midway up—around what could be considered the "waist"—they branched apart in different directions.
At that height, a broad and relatively flat platform naturally formed.
This was the best location on the entire tree, and traditionally where the Golden Three-Legged Crow clan leader resided.
That was where Huangxi was taking them.
Once they arrived, Arthur examined the surroundings.
The platform bore only claw marks from Golden Crows and traces of scorched fire—modifications made by the clan leader to make the place more livable.
Overall, it looked rather crude. After all, the aesthetic standards of a thousand years ago were… simple.
At the very center of the platform lay a single egg—about the size of a dragon egg.
Arthur studied the crimson-golden egg and asked,
"This is the prematurely deceased child left behind by the Golden Crow clan leader?"
"Yes," Huangxi nodded.
"An accident occurred shortly after it was laid, causing severe loss of vitality. It was never able to hatch."
"Did the clan leader not set up any restrictions?" Arthur asked curiously.
"Leaving it out in the open like this—wasn't he worried about accidents?"
There were no visible wards or barriers around the egg. If this were the outside world, it would have been stolen long ago.
"No," Huangxi replied.
"To replenish the egg's vitality, the clan leader set up a special formation to draw life force from the Undying Tree below and gather it here."
"If additional restrictions were placed, they would interfere with the flow of life force. So he didn't add any. He simply asked our Phoenix clan to watch over the child."
"Still, it's strange," she continued.
"Thousands of years have passed. The Fusang Tree has grown significantly—yet the egg still hasn't recovered."
Huangxi was clearly puzzled.
The Undying Tree possessed immense vitality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be legends of immortality from consuming its fruit.
With such a powerful source nourishing it, the egg should have hatched long ago.
Arthur released his spiritual perception and carefully examined the egg.
A moment later, his expression turned odd.
The egg was indeed still suffering from severe vitality deficiency.
More importantly—there was no sign of life force gathering around it at all.
But Huangxi had said there was a formation in place.
Suspecting something was wrong, Arthur expanded his spiritual perception, searching for the formation itself.
Soon, he found it—several hundred meters below, still functioning perfectly.
The formation itself was flawless. Created by the Golden Crow clan leader, it had been operating continuously for thousands of years without issue.
The problem lay elsewhere.
Everyone knew that trees grow.
The formation's position, however, was fixed.
In other words—
Originally, the focal point of the formation had been the egg.
But as the Fusang Tree grew taller over the centuries, the tree itself replaced the egg's position.
As a result, all the life force gathered by the formation had been absorbed by the Fusang Tree instead.
"Huangxi," Arthur asked, "how much taller has the Fusang Tree grown over these past few thousand years?"
"At least several hundred meters," she replied. "Why?"
Her answer matched Arthur's expectations.
An ordinary tree wouldn't grow hundreds of meters in a millennium—much less a mythical Fusang Tree.
Only an enormous influx of vitality could have caused such rapid growth.
"Nothing," Arthur said calmly.
"I just figured out why this Golden Crow egg never hatched."
His words immediately drew curious gazes from the others.
Huangxi asked eagerly,
"What's the reason?"
Arthur then explained his discovery.
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